i'm surprised no one has put anything up on this yet..
but i was just about to game the siege of Tobruk..and i was reading the half track rules

it says for all purposes treat half tracks as armour..
so considering they fire max 2 dice and armour battle IN and OUT of certain terrains at -2 dice (e.g towns) does this mean they are unable to fire on and in these locations?

that's how i'm taking it..
i supposed it makes for some kinda realism ( they are lightly armoured) but these seems potentially to make them pretty naff for alot of potential situations.

..i just wonder if DOW have made a wee mistake ...
i.e they want them to fire 2 2 (to not be as strong as tanks ) and then they've thought hell..treat them as armour (for command card purposes..dice targeting and hits etc ) without perhaps realising that this specific rule (firing -2 in and out of towns) completely nullifies them!!

I don't know ... the dice reduction for tanks is intended to portrary the relative uselessness of tanks in urban warfare (street fighting etc.), and a halftrack, being less armed and armored, would be even less useful, I think.

When we use the half-tracks they are mainly used for combined attacks against attacking forces or used to re-supply other units.
Having a 2-figure half-track close by to resupply is something the opponent needs to take into account when attacking.

It's useless against units in towns unless you have Armor Assuault.

When we played Capture of Tobruk my British tank reduced a german Panzer to 1-figure only to see the Half-track roll in and resupply it up to full strenght again. That tank unit bothered the british for a while.

I'm sure they must have playtested it and been well aware that they would be unable to fire into towns, bunkers, and forests (except on Armor Assault, Close Assault, Firefight, and TFH). All these terrain types occur in the DAD HT scenarios. If they wanted them to be able to battle into that terrain, it would have been easy enough for them to make it -1d, instead.

An ordinary tank fires from town to town at a theoretical -1 (i.e not at all), so if a half-track is being classed as less powerfull, then it makes sense that they can't do it either.

That is not the problem the thread was addressing. The problem (or 1/2 of it) is when a HT fires out of a town, say into empty terrain. In that situation it fires with 0 dice as compared with 1 for tanks. This does indeed seem like a less than ideal rule IMO, (but so does the rule that tanks take -2 reduction in the same situation).

Now the other 1/2 of the problem, HTs firing into a town, forest or whatever, with absolutely no effect, also seems less than ideal. Recall, a tank would at least have 1 die in this situation.

So imagine this situation as if you commanded forces in WWII: You have a choice to equip your infantry unit with HTs or not and assault the enemy infantry in a forested region across open terrain. With HTs, you'll get there faster and likely get see less casualties, but your mechanized infantry will do no damage to the enemy (because I guess HTs cannot fire through trees ). So what's the point of using the HTs.

For all practical purposes, the HT is really a re-supply vehicle given these constraints. This is one place where a house rule would make more sense.

For all practical purposes, the HT is really a re-supply vehicle given these constraints.

Isn't that exactly what the Half-Tracks were predominantly used for?? Simply transporting and supplying troops!

How often do you hear about the fearless Half-Track drivers charging into a hedgerow (or a forste, or even up a hill) and opening fire on the enemy?

Well, if they are transporting troops, then they are transporting them somewhere. Why not towards the enemy. Remember, that M44 units are abstractions. To me it makes more sense that an abstract HT unit supplies speed and protection to infantry than supply. Or even speed in transporting artillery.

Troop transport was one aspect, and that might make sense in M44 if HTs supplied infantry and not armour, and supply trucks supplied armour and not infantry. So maybe my example was not best, since HTs have been cast as armour supply vehicles in M44, but you have to admit, that supply aspect makes little sense as coming from a HT.

HTs were also used as armoured fighting vehicles and carried mortars, anti-aircraft, anti-tank, or other guns and were used to tow artillery.

If you look at how HTs are modeled in other WWII games (e.g., Conflict of Heroes) you will see that they are fairly powerful in attack, provide protection, can tow units and so on. I don't think it unreasonable they have decent fire power in M44, on par with infantry in close assault but weaker than tanks, and by decent I mean without these terrain reductions to zero firepower.

So it's only a -1 to fire into towns and woods and so on, same as an infantry unit. But is restricted in movement and is a target like Tanks.

In like Randwulf's suggestion and may use it as a house rule.

Most half tracks used as infantry transport were armed with heavy infantry weapons, not canons like tanks. Therefor it makes sense to allow them to move and be hit as armour but fight as infantry using the 220 regime.

Interesting discussion. The way I see it is, halftracks are an upgraded version of trucks -- they can battle and be used as combat units but are limited in this regard.

They can move up to 2 hexes and battle which regular infantry cannot. Of course they are worse than infantry when a target unit is in terrain as they cannot fire at all unless their combat abilities are enhanced by the use of a card.

But I think some miss the fact that when HTs are in a scenario these units may also resupply weakened friendly units. It is in this role that they are of much more value. Designer intent here?

Bringing up a 1 fig tank unit back to full strength so that it cannot battle on makes much more sense than leaving an understrength HT unit in the board. I made this mistake in a scenario - I really needed that extra tank at the end of a scenario but instead I had two HTs both of which were ordered by Armor Assault. The problem was they could not close with the enemy therefor they could not battle with a 3 fig infantry tucked away in a woods hex.

So players have an option of using these HTs to offset batle losses and / or use HTs as a combat unit. Make your choice.